"It! The Terror From Beyond Space" -1958.

Tagline: "$50,000 by a world renowned insurance company to the first person who can prove that "It" is not on Mars now!" I have a feeling it costs more than 50 large to get to Mars to prove that theory. Even in 1958! I didn't have a photo of any poor astronauts, (they all seem to be pretty well funded) so here's a picture of a cat in a space suit.

Let's talk poster: The monster (hereafter refered to by his legal name "It!") is fairly accurate. The mountains shown on the surface of Mars are also, in terms of relation to this movie, accurate. It's black and white so I couldn't say for sure if any of the women wore red but I doubt it. The pistol Carruthers is holding is also true to the movie, as everyone in this movie has more firepower than the offspring of Chuck Norris and Kim Jong-il.

I give this poster a solid B+.

Plot: Col. Caruthers is the only surviving crew member of the first manned flight to Mars.

Carruthers says an unknown alien life form killed the other nine, but he has an appointment with a court martial back on Earth. Naturally, Earth fires off a rescue ship they had lyin' around along with a new crew to make sure Carruthers makes it back. Before they leave Mars, It! gets aboard the rocket ship via an errorneously open hatch....not that we're blaming anyone (I'm looking at you, Royce!)...

and it (not It!) isn't long before (now!) It! is ohm-nom-nomming on various crew members.

Eventually, the survivors are trapped and have to use every ounce of their wits (which is just shy of a quarter of a pound in total) to defeat It!.

Let's just jump right in! Things I learned from this movie: 1- It! is not to be confused with "It Came From Outer Space", despite the "It" in the title....It! has a (!) after It! so you know to be scared of It!

Also not to be confused with "Them!"

in spite of the prominent display of an exclamation point...now that we have that cleared up, let's press on, 2- I'm not sure how I missed it, but apparently a manned spacecraft landed on Mars

in Januray of 1973....I was six so maybe Sesame Street was on...."Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh",

3- instead of showing signs on doors to make a transition from scene to scene, the director used the ship "hurtling" through space...if you watch this movie get ready to see this a lot,

4- according to one of the characters it takes four months to get a rocket ship to Mars ( 78,341,212 Km from Earth on average) so let's see...that's 48,678,972 miles. Four months is 2,280 hours which works out to  34,360 miles per hour....Apollo 10 managed just under 40,000 miles per hour

so this science is relatively sound and is allowed to stay and have cake and tea, 5- if you are being taken back to Earth to face trial for murdering 9 people no one will handcuff you nor lock you in a room of any kind though they may show you icky things like skulls,

6- an enormous stockpile of cigarettes and enough weapons to make North Korea jealous....who's in charge of supplies? Charlton Heston?,






                                                                                                            7- it may be "the future" (1973) but the women are still waiting on the lazy-ass men hand and foot!,  

8- "Excuse me, Mr Heston, but what's in that box?",

9- the 50s: it's all spearguns and bazookas and a pistol in every pot!, 10- and while we're at it if I can't bring a pair of nail clippers on an airplane how the Hell did this guy get a friggin' bazooka on a rocket ship?...he must be a Space Marshall,

11- "We'll use the gas grenades as a last resort" and then the VERY NEXT SCENE shows them using them!

...patience, people! Just because you haven't been able to kill It! with bullets, hand grenades or electrocution there is no need to panic!...besides, buddy hasn't had a chance to try out the bazooka,

12- if It! is smart enough to hide It!self and the bodies of those It! kills why isn't It! smart enough not to knock everything over when It!'s snooping around? Damn clumsy unstoppable monsters,

13- a little radiation never killed anybody....don't be such a baby!

Totally pointless and probably boring bonus facts: Anyone that has seen Ridley Scott's "Alien" will notice some very interesting coincidences: People trapped in space on a ship are picked off one by one by a seemingly unstoppable monster with acidic blood. Hmmmm....oh, and SPOILER ALERT!....they open a hatch to suffocate the alien. Which reminds me: please note the newspaper stuck to the ladder in the photo. Now, I ask you, who brings a newspaper on a four month long journey to a distant planet? Unless that's The New York Times it won't take you four months to do the crossword puzzle.

Again, hmmmmm....In space, no one can hear you hire a lawyer for copyright infringement.
That's Marshall Thompson as Carruthers. A B-movie veteran from stuff like "Cult Of The Cobra" (also starring Kathleen Hughes of "It Came From Outer Space" and Thompson's brother-in-law Richard Long from "House On Haunted Hill")

as well as "Fiend Without A Face" and "First Man In Space". Thompson is most famous as Dr. Marsh Tracy in "Daktari" from 60s TV.

Ray Corrigan was It!

At 6' 2" tall, this former fitness trainer to the stars was ideally suited (no pun intended) to play a large, growling creature. Corrigan can be "seen" in many movies and TV shows from the 50s and 60s wearing some sort of ape/monkey suit. That's probably him in the chimp suit next to Marshall Thompson. He was a versatile actor.

Shirley Patterson was Ann Anderson. Patterson was actually billed as Shawn Smith in this movie. That's because she had bowed out of Hollywood in 1947 to raise a family and then re-emerged as "Shawn Smith" in 1953. Patterson/Smith was born in Winnepeg but somehow still became Miss California 1940 before going on to act in movies like "World Without End".

Patterson/Smith broke her leg in eight places (ouch!) in a skiing accident in 1958 which ended her acting career for good.

Dabbs Greer was Eric Royce, whom I blamed for this whole tragic incident. No slouch in the B-movie industry himself,

Greer was a feature player in films including (but not limited to): "House Of Wax" (he was Sgt. Shane), and "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" (the good one, not the cheesy remake with Donald Sutherland

doing his imitation of someone pouring cold water down his pants). Arguably most famous for his role as the older version of Tom Hanks' character, Paul Edgecomb, in "The Green Mile" (above).
That is all. Further bulletins as events warrant. Stay tuned to this blog for details.